Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the points raised by my hon. friend opposite because they are important issues to address. They are ones that hon. members opposite are always using to justify their position. It is important that Canadians know it does not do that.
First of all, the reaction of the financial markets was positive. It is kind of sad, is it not, that financial markets are so used to governments that do not do anything that there is great relief when there are any cuts in our borrowing.
Not only that, my friends who work in the financial industry tell me that financial markets discount government actions. They are way ahead of government. They are weeks ahead of government and they discounted this budget long ago. They did
not do it the day after; they did it weeks before. That is how financial markets work. Those familiar with financial markets know that.
The hon. member brags that the government has reached its targets although previous governments have not. If you make your targets low, of course you will reach them. It is like a cigarette smoker who cuts back from two packs a day to a pack and a half and then says: "I am quitting smoking". He has a long way to go and so does this budget.
There is no plan to get to zero deficit in this budget. There is nice talk by the finance minister on the side that of course, yes, this is the ultimate goal. If it is a goal, there should be a plan. Instead, the government always refers to its red book target of a $25 billion dollar deficit which is huge.
Our plan is to cut social spending by $15 billion for the simple reason that if you do that, you get to zero borrowing. If you get to zero borrowing, the interest levels off. The interest gets flat. If you do not cut your borrowing, then the interest keeps rising. Once the interest levels off, you know you have the rest of your money to work with. However, if the interest keeps going up, then you have less and less money to work with every single year.
That is exactly what is going to happen under this plan. If members opposite think that cutting spending now to get to a zero deficit is bad, just wait until they see the cuts that will have to be made when our interest gets to $50 billion, $55 billion, $60 billion because this government will not take that kind of action.